Truman Capote - William Shakespeare - Author Unknown - Benjamin Disraeli - George Eliot - Joseph Conrad - Bernard Ingham - Christopher Isherwood - Oscar Wilde - Dorothy Parker - Noam Chomsky - Agatha Christie & Murder at the Gallop 1963 - Richard Brinsley Sheridan - Baruch Spinoza - James Boswell & Samuel Johnson - Godfrey Turner - Upton Sinclair -
All literature is gossip. Truman Capote, cited Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation; viz also Esquire magazine
What great ones do the less will prattle of. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I ii 29, Captain
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses, and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon ’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies, and we’ll wear out,
In a walled prison, packs and sets of great ones
That bee and flow by the moon. William Shakespeare, King Lear V iii 14
There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly becomes any of us
To talk about the rest of us. Author unknown
I admit that there is gossip ... But the government of the world is carried on by sovereigns and statesmen, and not by anonymous paragraph writers ... or by the hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity. Benjamin Disraeli, speech Guildhall 9th November 1878
Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Gossip is what no-one claims to like but everybody enjoys. Joseph Conrad
Blood sport is brought to its ultimate refinement in the gossip columns. Bernard Ingham, speech 5th February 1986
Here, gossip achieves the epigrammatic significance of poetry. To keep such a diary is to render a real service to the future. Christopher Isherwood, re Goncourt Brothers’ Journals 1940
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no-one talk about you. Oscar Wilde
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,
Painter or plumber or never-do-well,
Do me a favor and shut your face –
Poets alone should kiss and tell. Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker
Well, I’m not sure The New York Times was consciously trying to trivialise me, but the effect of it is to put everything in the same category as the gossip you read in the magazines you pick up at supermarket counters. I was asked, for example, why I thought there were so many euphemisms for genitalia. It’s not a serious question. Whatever the purpose of such a tone is, the effect is to make it appear that anyone who departs from orthodox political doctrine is in some ways laughable. Noam Chomsky
Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence – it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute! Agatha Christie, The Labours of Hercules
I have some tittle-tattle to convey. Do come in. Murder at the Gallop 1963 starring Margaret Rutherford & Stringer Davis & Robert Morley & Flora Robson & Bud Tingwell & Gordon Harris & Robert Urquhart & Katya Douglas & James Villiers & Noel Howlett et al, director George Pollock, Marple to rozzers
Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal
Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words. Baruch Spinoza
Johnson observed that, ‘he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.’ James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson
A scandal or two
I shall mention to you;
And first, here is one
That’s as sure as a gun,
For the person who told me was told it
By some one who knew
That the story was true,
For he heard it one day,
In a casual way ... Godfrey Turner, Tattle
A new burst of rage swept over him — What did it matter whether it was true or not — whether anything was true or not? What did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It was what everybody believed — what everybody was interested in! It was the measure of a whole society — their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of low intrigue. Upton Sinclair, Metropolis, 1908